The Juche Methodology of Leadership By Shaun Pickford
The Juche Methodology of Leadership By Shaun PickfordThe Juche methodology of leadership makes up a key component of Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism. As 2025 marks the 80th anniversary of the founding of the Workers' Party of Korea, it is an ideal opportunity to reflect on the Juche Leadership Methodology. While the Juche Idea provides the masses with an outlook on the world and a theory of revolution and construction, the methodology of leadership put forward by Juche is to call forth how to enlist the masses to struggle and create a new society. Previously, Marxism was principally devoted to shedding light on the socioeconomic conditions for the liberation of the exploited masses, so the methodology of leadership was not presented as a theory in its own right. The revolutionary practice of the 20th and 21st centuries, when the popular masses have emerged as the agents of social progress and are hewing out their destiny, the issue of leadership has become of crucial importance. It is only when the popular masses are capable of remoulding society and nature to their requirements, and reforming themselves into more powerful and social beings, when they are organised, fully conscious and have decisive and creative leadership.
It is thanks to President Kim IL Sung and Chairman Kim Jong IL that the methodology of leadership was formulated both in theory and practice. Marshal Kim Jong Un has added new contributions to the Juche Leadership Methodology in keeping with the demands of the 21st century. From the first days of revolutionary struggle, Kim IL Sung firmly believed in the proposition that Communists should rely on the strength of the masses. Kim IL Sung generalised the rich experience that had been obtained during the Anti-Japanese struggle in a theoretical and practical structure of mass leadership. It is a core principle that the leadership of the revolution and construction is guided by a working-class party, according to the Juche Idea. The masses can play the role of transforming nature and society under the guidance of the leader and the party. People's Korea has successfully traversed the complex road of revolution and socialist construction, with the WPK regarding the working masses as the subject of social development.
Over the eight decades of its existence, the Workers' Party of Korea has maintained the positions of the class line and the mass line in its activities. The class line upholds the vital significance of the proletarian nature of state power in the DPRK, defending the interests of the working class and and combating bourgeois ideologies and modern revisionism. The mass line of the WPK is one uniting as many social strata as possible around the party, such as the peasants, intellectuals and waving elements. Socialism can only be bulit and consolidated by the majority of the population united behind the party. The Workers' Party of Korea is a mass party embracing workers, peasants, and intellectuals within its ranks. The membership of the WPK is believed to be 3 million. Wearing the WPK badge with pride are soldiers, waitresses, bus drivers, doctors, teachers, street cleaners, economists and government officials, indeed from representatives of every section of society in the DPRK. The Great Leaders of the WPK, Kim IL Sung, Kim Jong IL and Kim Jong Un, fought against elitist and bureaucratic tendencies from emerging in the ranks of the party and state. An effective way the WPK has overcome elitist tendencies from developing within the party ranks has been for functionaries and officials to carry out manual labour on every Friday, while encouraging manual workers to participate in ideological and intellectual study on Saturdays. Many former socialist countries had allowed a gulf to develop between the party and people, thus alienating the masses from socialism and enabling the winds of counter-revolution to blow into society.
The Juche approach to the questions of leadership offers an innovative methodology to issues of party and state building for those forces aspiring to national and social liberation. In Western countries, some Leftist parties have a chaotic style of organisation, are infected with a liberalistic worldview and have no tangible connections with the grass roots of the working masses. On the other hand, some ultra-leftist parties pursue a sectarian position inregard to work with the mass movements, follow dogmatism in their ideological outlook and shun contact with working-class communities. Juche in question, of leadership and organisation, gives a fresh perspective on the need to develop a substantial and meanful of building working class and popular hegemony in the struggle for a better society.
The Workers' Party of Korea has firmly established a system of unity in work with the popular masses in the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea. In Socialist Korea, the entire people move in a unified way to ensure independence. Due to the establishment of the Juche Leadership Methodology, Korean-style socialism can be viewed as being the most successful and durable form of a socialist system in existence. The Workers' Party of Korea under the leadership of Respected Comrade Kim Jong Un is at the forefront of socialist theory and practice in the 21st century.
